Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s U.S.
approval for oil exploration in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea will be
contested by groups including the Natural Resources Defense
Council and an Inupiat village worried about the risk of spills.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York,
and Point Hope, a settlement on Alaska’s North Slope, will sue
the Obama administration for a decision allowing drilling in the
Beaufort Sea, according to an e-mailed statement today from the
groups.

The Hague-based company was cleared by the Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement on Aug. 4 to begin
exploring in July 2012 and tap Arctic leases it bought in 2005
and later years, in which it has invested about $4 billion.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management doesn’t have a
comment on the groups’ complaints, spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz
said in an e-mail today.

Shell’s plan for the Beaufort and Chuckchi seas, which are
estimated to hold about 25 billion barrels of oil, have been
delayed by environmental groups, North Slope residents and the
administration, over concerns that a spill may kill polar bears
and hurt bowhead whales, key to the North Slope subsistence
lifestyle. A federal appeals court in 2007 halted Shell’s
Chuckchi work in response to complaints from the groups.

Shell remains confident that the approval of the Beaufort
exploration plan will be upheld in court, spokesman Curtis Smith
said in an e-mail today.